Intel® Itanium® Processor: Reference Guide, IA-32 Architecture

Tags:

17132_IA32_Update_r01.qxd

Intel® Itanium® Processor: Reference Guide, IA-32 Architecture

IA-32 Application Support Provides Flexibility in Migrating to Itanium® Architecture

The Intel® Itanium® processor family has been architected to provide industry-leading performance and capabilities on high-end applications. To take advantage of the benefits of the Itanium® 2 processor, a large and growing number of soft...ware applications have been ported to native Itanium architecture code. While optimal performance is realized using native applications, support for IA-32 applications is also provided to enable IT managers flexibility in migrating to Itanium 2-based solutions:• Itanium 2-based solutions can be deployed when primary, performance-sensitive applications have been ported to Intel Itanium architecture.• IA-32 versions of secondary applications with less stringent performance requirements can be run on Itanium 2-based platforms. This provides flexibility to IT managers when converting from RISC solutions because they can tap into the broad IA-32 ecosystem.

Figure A depicts a typical application stack for an Itanium 2-based system deployment where both native Itanium and IA-32 applications are used.• For optimal performance, the primary, performance-sensitive application (or core application), the database, the operating system, and the drivers have all been ported to run in native Itanium architecture mode.• In many cases, IA-32 versions of secondary applications (database administration tools, system management, system monitoring, and backup/recovery) will deliver acceptable performance.